§ Sir WILLIAM BYLESasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that the prisoner Thomas Seager, who died recently after transference to the Essex County Asylum, had been sentenced at the Essex Quarter Sessions in January last to six months' imprisonment and twelve strokes with the birch for refusing a workhouse task; that the flogging was remitted, not for medical reasons, but as being inappropriate for the offence; whether the prisoner had been found insane in his cell on 18th May; and whether any report as to his health had been previously made by the doctor?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe answer to each of the first three paragraphs is in the affirmative. No report had been made to me on the prisoner's health before the certificate of insanity was submitted, but I may say that the whipping, if it had not been remitted on other grounds, would not have been carried out if the medical officer had found sufficient medical grounds for advising remission.